Tarot Card Meaning
Tarot card meaning is what gives power to interpretations and predictions; each card has a significance and a peculiar symbolism attached to it. What we often fail to understand is that the full tarot card meaning comes from the spread or the combined explanations of the cards for the question of the life issue you expect to learn more about. In the Rider Waite tarot, there are seventy-eight cards, and the first step beginners have to take is to learn what each of them means. From the Fool to the Queen and the King, the tarot cards can be studied, analyzed and understood depending on the sensible nature of every user.
Tarot card reading has evolved over the years; for people who have a more profound knowledge of the Kabbalah or alchemy, the similarity of symbols could be pretty striking. Thus, all sorts of symbols have been added in time so that the present-day form of the decks is a very complex one. It is also common practice to complicate things even further by personalizing the cards and adding other subtle interpretations to the decks. Thus, many amateur philosophers choose to give their personal explanations to certain aspects from alchemy or the Kabbalah.
The tarot card meaning greatly varies depending on the interpretation; thus, a single card can be given different explanations based on the location of the card in the spread and the meaning of the other cards in its vicinity. Very often, based on the reader’s own common sense and judgment, a tarot card meaning can be discarded as irrelevant for the question that is under discussion. While in the Major Arcana, the figures have very distinct symbolism, in the Minor Arcana the emphasis is on the four alchemical elements to which the cards correspond. Thus, the pentagrams stand for earth, the wands for fire, the cups for water and the swords for air.
In general lines, the tarot card meaning gives one a clue about the way he/she goes through the personal journey: is one on the right path or has one strayed away? This tarot card meaning normally results from the spreads in the Major Arcana where each card matches a certain life aspect: the fool stands for the beginning of a journey, the magician indicates the path towards wisdom, the high priestess indicates the level of self-balance, the empress points to pleasure, wealth and love, while the emperor represents claimed power and authority, and so on and so forth.